PATÉS.
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No form of meat, entrée, or made dish is more popular, and, if rightly prepared, more elegant than the paté. It is susceptible of variations, many and pleasant, chiefly in the form of the crust and the nature of its contents. The celebrated patés de foie gras, imported from Strasbourg, are usually without the paste enclosure, and come to us in hermetically sealed jars.
Paté of Sweetbreads.
Make a good puff paste, basting two or three times with butter, and set in a cold place for at least half an hour. The best paté covers I have ever made were from paste kept over night in a cool dry safe, before it was rolled into a sheet for cutting. When the paste is crisp and firm, roll quickly, and cut into rounds about a quarter of an inch thick. Reserving one of these whole for the bottom crust of each paté, lay it in a floured baking-pan, cut the centre from two or three others, as you desire your paté to be shallow or deep, and lay these carefully, one after another, upon the whole one, leaving a neat round well, a little over an inch in diameter, in the middle. Bake in a quick oven, and when lightly browned, glaze by brushing each over with white of egg and returning to the oven for a minute. Make ready as many sweetbreads as you need (two of fair size will make a good dish), previously prepared by boiling fifteen minutes in hot water, then made firm by plunging into very cold. Cut them into slices, season with pepper and salt, put into a covered saucepan with a great spoonful of butter and a very little water, and simmer gently until tender all through. Cut these in turn into very small squares, and mix with less than a cupful of white sauce. Return to the saucepan and heat almost to boiling, stirring carefully all the time. Fill the patés, arrange upon a hot dish, and send up at once.
White Sauce for the above.
1 small cupful of milk, heated to boiling in a custard-kettle, or tin pail set in hot water.
1 heaping teaspoonful corn-starch, wet with cold milk.